Elective surgery could be hit by cuts: doctors

PEOPLE awaiting elective surgery are likely to be the first to suffer when government funding cuts take effect at Swan Hill District Health (SHDH).

The Federal Government pledged $107 million less for Victorian Hospitals for the remainder of the financial year, which resulted in a $374,000 pro rata cut in the SHDH 2012/13 budget.

SHDH chief executive officer Ted Rayment said management would meet on Tuesday to look at a range of measures to keep the level of services up.

“The executive and finance staff will look at where we think we are travelling this year as far as expenditure… and what we can do to maintain the service without further cuts,” he said.

Mr Rayment said staff retention was important.

“That’s the major challenge, because once [staff] are lost they are hard to get back,” he said.

Swan Hill Surgical Practice surgeon Dr Shantha Tellambura said elective surgery patients waited about four to five months on local elective surgery waiting lists.

Dr Tellambura said the total amount of patients on waiting lists was hard to quantify, with visiting surgeons keeping their own waiting lists, but he had about 100 on his own list.

Among those procedures on the elective surgery list were hernia and gallstone patients, and in some cases, those suffering from diseases such as cancer.

For more on this story, see Friday’s edition of The Guardian
(11/01/13).